This September, around 20,000 churches will reach out to 10 million unchurched Americans for National Back to Church Sunday.

Iraq’s Christian heritage can be compared to its wetland marshes. Christ-followers in Iraq date back to the first century, making it one of the oldest Christian communities in the world. But today, Christianity in Iraq is under serious threat. Similarly, the wetland marshes—once teeming with flora and fauna—were drained to desert over a decade ago.

Christians in many nations are being encouraged to set aside time with the Lord in their homes or local churches during a 72 hour window, April 30-May 2, to repent, to fast, to pray, individually and for the United States to return to its earlier dependence on God.

This international prayer event will begin with a National Day of Repentance on April 30 www.dayofrepentance.org and conclude with the National Day of Prayer on May 2 www.nationaldayofprayer.org.

This unique call has been encouraged by Australia’s national day of prayer team, who are spreading the event to other national prayer teams www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNe0hJvLSr0.

The International House of Prayer ihopkc.org will help focus this 72 hour world prayer event through its live website which draws up to 75,000 “hits” in 130 nations each day.

April 30 is an appropriate day for repentance. The legislature in Pennsylvania has designated April 30 as its day of fasting and prayer. And April 30 marks the 224th anniversary of President Washington’s inaugural remarks thanking God for His miracles in founding America. April 30 also is the 150th anniversary of President Lincoln’s “National Day of Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer” in the midst of the despair of the Civil War. Issuing the proclamation, Lincoln said in part: “we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. It behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins and to pray for…forgiveness.”

The international call to repent, fast, and pray for America will conclude on May 2 with the 62nd annual National Day of Prayer. The theme verse this year is Matthew 12:21: “In His name the nations will put their hope.”

National Day of Repentance is a nonprofit grass roots coalition of more than one hundred fifty Christian ministries across denominations now in forty states and twelve nations. Following II Chronicles 7:14 participants in their local churches set aside days of repentance to seek God’s purity in their lives and His mercy to forgive sins and heal nations. www.dayofrepentance.org

(Source: Christian Newswire)

Between recording a new album and raising a toddler, worship leader/songwriter Phil Wickham’s life is a flurry of activity, and it’s about to get even more exciting.

In a victory for Christians, a Florida town will not interfere with a National Day of Prayer rally.

On May 17-18, 2013, the Division of Education of the Church of God will commemorate 35 years of the Ministerial Internship Program (MIP). As part of the weekend of ceremonies and celebrations, organizers will pay tribute to the past leaders who have shaped this life-changing leadership training program of the Church of God.

While routinely rounding up vagrant pigeons in the attic of his church in Kansas City, Missouri, Minister John F. Drew III stepped on a bad spot and his life would be changed forever. He fell 40 feet and landed in a small cubby hole at the foot of the baby grand piano. Even with the extent of his injuries, several broken bones, vertebrae, ribs and a fractured hip, local paramedic A.L. Baker stated “It was nothing short of a miracle that he survived a fall from that great of distance.”

The Orange Conference, one of the most important family ministry team events happening today, will be hosting a Live Stream April 24-26, 2013, from their sold out Atlanta conference. Drawing together over 5,500 key influencers — senior, student, children’s and preschool leaders — to discover new strategies for sharing God’s truth with the next generation, attendees will discover what it really means to clarify the essentials and eliminate distractions with the theme of “Focus.”

Nearly 70 people were rescued from a life of slavery in a rural district in Andhra Pradesh recently. Children were forced to work beside their parents in the brick factory around the clock—literally up to 22 hours a day, seven days a week. One 10-year-old boy told how he had to make 2,000 clay bricks a day, carrying eight at a time.